


Spun Sugar and Maths

by hariboo



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River sees patterns in everything, even when she doesn't try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spun Sugar and Maths

It's shiny, River senses Kaylee think. The way the colours swirl and spread out over the paper as they drip-drop the paint onto the spinning disc. They look like Kaylee's parasol.

River thinks the patterns are shiny too, but as even as she drips the blue as Kaylee drops the yellow and green grows she can't help but see the patterns. Patterns. In the blue, in the yellow, in the green they make and swirl. She can't help but see the numbers. Physics. Quantum physics, particles in space… the momentum of a particle precisely makes the position uncertain… Chaos theory. The behaviour of chaotic systems appears to be random.

The number and patterns and colours. They swirl in River's brain along with Kaylee's smile and together they add the red and orange. It spreads out from the centre of the spinner like fire and blood.

Kaylee stops the spinner and lift the paper. She smiles at the patterns and tells River that it looks like a flower. River sees the flower in Kaylee's mind and it's bright and shiny and pure. Like Kaylee. Red daisies in a field. River tells Kaylee she deserves a dress made of flowers. Kaylee smiles brighter than the sun on Persephone and adds as new sheet of paper on the spinner.

As Kaylee starts the spinner she turns to River and asks what she thinks of their art work. River smiles small and says, poppies fields. She doesn't tell Kaylee poppies can be poisonous and that in River's mind they're all made of blood.

Turning to the spinner, River watches as Kaylee adds blue and red, and they swirl into purple tendrils. River feels the number sneak into her brain with each drop and choke her. Purple. River then adds to much yellow. It turns the purple into a soft brown. Kaylee frowns and stops the spinner. It isn't the first ruined pattern. And it won't be the last. As River adds the next sheet and apologises Kaylee mixes the colour powder with the water telling her not to fret.

River smiles and later when they'll wallpaper River's room with the paper, River will cover them with equations. Fixing the patterns. Writing new one. Jayne will say it looks like her moon-brain threw up on the room. He will not know how right he was.


End file.
